THE WRETCHED

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

1985 – A girl named Megan (Sydne Mikelle) arrives at the home of the Gambels, a family she is babysitting for. She then hears a noise coming from the basement and goes downstairs to investigate. To her horror, a grotesque creature is devouring the little girl she was supposed to look after. Megan runs to the stairs and finds Mr. Gambel at the top, who shuts the door. As Megan is killed, a peculiar symbol is shown carved on the door.

Present Day – A young man named Ben (John-Paul Howard) arrives to stay with his father Liam (Jamison Jones) as his parents are in the process of a divorce. Liam sets Ben up with a brief job working at the marina where he meets a girl named Mallory (Piper Curda). He is antagonized by a snobby rich kid named Gage (Richard Ellis), and Ben notices Liam with another woman working there named Sara (Azie Tesfai).

Liam’s neighbor Abbie (Zarah Mahler) and her son Dillon (Blane Crockarell) are in the woods. Dillon comes across a tree with the same symbol seen at the Gambel house. He then hears what sounds like Abbie’s voice coming from the tree trunk, calling to him sweetly before growing more aggressive until Abbie herself pops up to get Dillon, and the tree itself just seems to disappear. They return home to dad/husband Ty (Kevin Bigley) and baby Sam with a buck that they hit and are bringing home for dinner. Abbie tries to skin and gut the creature, but she messes up and just causes its guts to spill out. They leave it there, and at night, something crawls out of the buck’s carcass.

The next day, Ben befriends Dillon at the marina. Meanwhile, Abbie is with Sam near the porch where something appears to have broken in. As she leaves, the flowers around her quickly decay. After work, Ben plans to have dinner with Liam and Sara to meet her, but he is invited to a party by Mal and he joins her instead.

At the party, Ben almost hooks up with Mal, but he gets drunk and throws up before he can kiss her. He is then approached by another girl who invites him into the pool. He can’t go in too deep because he has a cast on his arm, but the girl pulls Ben’s underwear off and tricks him into being there, as orchestrated by Gage. He gets his clothes and leaves, where he goes home still drunk. He argues with Liam and refers to Sara as “a bitch that [he’s] sleeping with”, which she overhears.

Later that night, Abbie goes to check on Sam after she doesn’t see him in his crib on the camera footage. When she enters his room, she hears a crunching sound and blood oozing from under the crib. Abbie is then grabbed and pulled underneath.

After work the next day, Liam is working late, so Ben gets a ride home from Sara. He apologizes for what he said about her, and she agrees to give him a second chance. When he gets home, he finds Dillon hiding upstairs because Abbie is freaking him out. When “Abbie” comes to collect him, Ben denies that he is there until Ty shows up, and Dillon goes running to him. Ben later notices Abbie going into the forest with her child, but Liam stops Ben from pursuing. Abbie later returns to have sex with Ty.

Ben wakes up late for work and realizes he was supposed to give Dillon a sailing lesson, but Mal says he never showed up. When Ben goes to his house to ask, Ty denies even having a son and not remembering Dillon. Later, while taking out the trash, Ben finds a smashed picture frame with Sam’s picture in it. Meanwhile, Abbie whispers something demonic in Ty’s ear that makes him bleed, and after a shower, she sees her skin and body is starting to decay and rot.

Ben does some more digging now that he is more suspicious. He reads into a witch that is known for possessing people and taking children. He goes into Ty and Abbie’s cellar and finds a picture of the family with Ty’s face scratched out, along with a picture of Mal and her sister Lily (Ja’layah Washington), making him realize that the witch is after Lily next. Ben calls Mal to warn her about this, but she doesn’t seem to remember Lily. Ben rushes to go save Lily, but he is too late, as the witch has gotten her and has pulled her into her tree.

Ben calls the police but finds them at his place after learning that he broke into Ty and Abbie’s cellar, as well as him skipping work and fighting with Gage after he dumped rotten fish in his dad’s boat. When left alone with Sara, he notices flowers decaying, and he realizes she is possessed by the witch. When she tries to attack, he slashes her arm, but the witch makes it look like Ben just attacked Sara for no reason in front of Liam. Ben is taken into custody, but he pleads with Liam to check the neighbors’ house for clues as to what he’s talking about.

The officer escorting Ben stops near the beach and attempts to drown Ben until a dog comes to attack the officer. He shoots the dog and then himself after realizing he was being possessed to try and kill Ben. Meanwhile, Liam goes to Ty and Abbie’s to find their dead bodies in the place, as well as what looks like a shrine made by the witch. Sara then comes up to stab Liam in the back. Before she can continue attacking, Ben arrives and shoots her. The witch crawls out of Sara’s corpse and goes after Ben, but he gets Liam to safety as their house burns down. Suddenly, this causes Ben to remember that he has a little brother, Nathan (Judah Abner Paul), since the witch made him forget him too.

Ben gets Mal and they go to the tree to rescue their siblings. Ben drops lighter fluid around the tree while Mal pours salt around it. He crawls inside and tries looking for the witch. He finds her feeding on Dillon’s corpse. Ben manages to find Nathan and pushes him back outside, but he runs back to find Lily. He fights off the witch and gets Lily out. The witch tries to go after the kids, but Liam arrives and rams his car into her.

Not long after, Ben is getting ready to go home with Nathan and their mother. They are dropping Liam off at his brother’s place to heal up. Ben and Mal share a kiss goodbye, and she puts a flower in his hair before she goes to give some kids a sailing lesson. As Ben gets in the car, he notices the flower is fake. It then becomes clear that the witch is alive and is now possessing Mal, who is left alone with three children…

An evil witch that feeds off children possesses a woman named Abbie, leading her to kill her two sons and husband before her body is finished. Her neighbor Liam's son Ben investigates and learns the truth about the witch. She kidnaps his friend Mal's sister Lily and Ben's brother Nathan. He saves the siblings and Liam appears to kill the witch by running into her with his car. However, it's later revealed that she is now possessing Mal.